Skip to search boxSkip to navigationSkip to main content

Visual imaging of invisible hazardous substances using bacterial inspiration

  • John Oyekan
    ,
  • Dongbing Gu
    ,
  • Huosheng Hu
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Abstract

Providing a visual image of a hazardous substance such as nerve gas or nuclear radiation using multiple robotic agents could be very useful particularly when the substance is invisible. Such visual representation could show where the hazardous substance concentration is highest through the deployment of a higher density of robotic agents to that area enabling humans to avoid such areas. We present an algorithm that is capable of doing the aforementioned with very minimal cost when compared with other techniques such as Voronoi partition methods. Using a mathematical proof, we show that the algorithm would always converge to the distribution of a spatial quantity under investigation. The mathematical model of the bacterium as developed by Berg and Brown is used in this paper, and through simulations and physical experiments, we show that a controller based upon the model is capable of being used to visually represent an invisible spatial hazardous substance using simplistic agents with the future possibility of the same algorithm being used to track a rapidly changing spatiotemporal substance. We believe that the algorithm has this potential because of its low communication and computational needs.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 1-11

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems (Volume 99)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 01/01/2013

Publication status

Published - 01/01/2013

ISSN

2168-2216

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/279221
  • Scopus: 84887079525

Access to documents

Publication metrics